


Selfish

by journeycat



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Protective Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4777085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeycat/pseuds/journeycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A child is the unwitting victim of the suffocating power of parental love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selfish

**Author's Note:**

> Written for One Night Stand Weekend at Goldenlake in April 2010.

Spring was early and in full force, warm and fresh and blooming with vibrant flowers. The sun was bright, casting a special glow across Tortall as it finally broke through the gray winter gloom. Faleron almost felt happy as he trudged through the meadow with his load held tightly in his arms. But it wasn’t happiness, not really and not ever and certainly not on this day, which had been the worst day of his life.

He glanced down, frowned, and reproved, “Don’t eat the flowers. You’ll get sick.”

“But Grandmama gives me flowers to eat.”

“Those are candied flowers and Grandmama grows them specifically for that.”

Faraday pouted for a moment, but her temperament was not one for sulking. She was too much like her mother, in that respect. She let him hug her close, his cheek against her sun-hot hair. _My darling, don’t ever leave me_.

“There she is,” he said heavily, and set her down.

Faleron watched as his young daughter ran forward on short, chubby legs, her long dark hair streaming behind her. She disappeared over the hill. He called, “Fara, don’t go too far.”

He trudged forward and shifted the huge bunch of flowers he held to the other arm. When he crested the hill, she was already kneeling in front of the grave.

In the city of Corus, Keladry’s death had been mourned, her name inscribed in history books, her shield mounted proudly on the wall in the throne room with those of the other realm’s heroes. But Faleron had laid her body to rest in this wide meadow on King’s Reach where they had so many memories: where he read her his poetry, the first time they made love, where he proposed, where they were sure they conceived Faraday. It was only fitting she be buried here.

Faleron knelt beside his daughter in front of the flowered mound. She turned her head to look at him with her child’s face, built like his in every way except for her dreamer’s green-hazel eyes with their long, curling lashes.

“Here,” he said, handing her the only rose in the spray of flowers. “Put this on Mama’s grave.”

Obediently, Faraday gently lay the rose on the mound. A zephyr whispered through her hair, lifting dark locks off her neck. She turned to smile at her father, but her face crumpled when she saw his expression.

“What’s wrong Papa?” she asked, climbing into his lap. She touched his wet cheeks with her dimpled hands. “Why’re you crying?”

He kissed her brow and set the rest of the flowers on his wife’s grave, arranging them neatly. He settled Faraday more comfortably on his lap.

“I just miss Mama,” he told her, resting his chin on her head. “I loved her so much and I’m lonely without her.”

“But she’s with the gods now, lookin’ down at us,” she said reasonably. “She’s still here, just not here.”

It never ceased to amaze him how clever his little girl was, just like her mother. She was only four and already she was so insightful. Perhaps she was suited for the Temple life. Better than the dangerous life of a knight, to be sure.

“It’s not the same, little love,” Faleron sighed. “It’s not the same as having her with me, to hold.”

Faraday was silent. He pensively watched a butterfly alight on a tulip, its great patterned wings gently quivering.

“Well,” she said suddenly, her voice bright, “you have me, don’t you, Papa?”

He smiled down at her. “Of course I do,” he said. “But what happens when you’re off and married and leave your old man alone at King’s Reach?”

She thought for a moment, and then grinned. “I’ll stay with you forever!” she swore. “I won’t let you be lonely.”

“That’s a grand promise to make,” he teased. “How can you possibly keep it?”

“I won’t leave you, ever,” she said staunchly. “I’ll stay at King’s Reach and take care of you.”

He crushed her against him a little too tightly, and she made muffled protests against his chest. He wanted so desperately for her to remain with him until he died, this one last piece of the woman he had loved with all of his heart. Could he do that? Could he keep his daughter with him forever?

Selfishly, cruelly, Faleron murmured, “Do you promise? Do you promise to never leave me, and never go off and put yourself in danger or abandon me?”

She pushed away from him, looking at him with her mother’s eyes and the sweetest smile. “I promise,” she nodded. “I’ll never go away.”

One day, Faleron knew, Faraday would grow up and discover her life’s dream, whether it was following in her mother’s footsteps or climbing the ranks in the Riders, and she would find a man she loved in a different way than her father, and she would want to marry him.

And he, unfairly, would try to hold her to her childish promise. She would fight him, try to break free of it, but he would fight just as hard. He tried not to think about how much Kel would disapprove; she was dead, and all she had left him was Faraday. He couldn’t let that go.

But it was not worth contemplating, not yet. After all, Faraday was young still, and she wasn’t ready to venture out away from him. Until then, he would have her to himself, and he could keep her with him a little bit longer.


End file.
